Pope announces first batch of new cardinals

January 13, 2014 - Pope Francis on Sunday announced the first group of cardinals in his nearly 10-month pontificate, naming 19 new cardinals from around the world and obviously indicating his preferential love for the world’s poor. Three of them are retired archbishops over 80-years of age whom the Pope is honouring “for their service to the Holy See and to the Church.” The Pope announced the names of the new cardinals during his weekly midday ‘Angelus’ prayer and blessing in Rome’s St. Pater’s Square. Speaking from the window of his studio overlooking the square he said that on February 22, the Feast of the Chair of Peter, he would hold the Consistory, to create the 16 new Cardinals, who he said, “coming from 12 countries from every part of the world, represent the deep ecclesial relationship between the Church of Rome and the other Churches throughout the world.” The following day, February 23, he will concelebrate a solemn Holy Mass with the new Cardinals, while on February 20 and 21 he will hold a Consistory with all the Cardinals to reflect on the theme of the family. Pope Francis urged for prayers for the new Cardinals, so that that “vested in the virtues and the sentiments of the Lord Jesus, the Good Shepherd, they might be able to help more effectively the Bishop of Rome in his service to the universal Church.”
There are two Asians among the cardinals-designate: Philipine Archbishop Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato and South Korean Archbishop Andrew Yeom Soo Jung of Seoul. Sixteen of the 19 are "cardinal electors" under 80 and thus eligible to enter a conclave to elect a pope. They come from Italy, Germany, Britain, Nicaragua, Canada, Ivory Coast, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Chile, Burkina Faso, the Philippines and Haiti. Half of them are non-Europeans, indicating the importance the Argentine Francis attaches to the developing world. Cardinals are the pope's closest advisers in the Vatican and around the world. Apart from being church leaders in their home countries, those who are not based in the Vatican are members in various key departments and offices in the Vatican that decide policies that can affect the lives of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. The new cardinal electors are aged from 55 to 74. Archbishop Chibly Langlois, 55, is the first cardinal from Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, where according to the World Bank some 80 percent of the rural population lives in abject poverty. The Philippines, Nicaragua, Ivory Coast and Brazil also have high rates of poverty.

Here are the names of the new Cardinals:
1. Pietro Parolin, Titular Archbishop of Acquapendente, Secretary of State
2. Lorenzo Baldisseri, Titular Archbishop of Diocleziana, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops
3. Gerhard Ludwig Műller, Archbishop-Bishop emeritus of Regensburg, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
4. Beniamino Stella, Titular Archbishop of Midila, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy
5. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster (Great Britain)
6. Leopoldo José Brenes Solórzano, Archbishop of Managua (Nicaragua)
7. Gérald Cyprien Lacroix, Archbishop of Québec (Canada)
8. Jean-Pierre Kutwa, Archbishop of Abidjan (Ivory Coast)
9. Orani João Tempesta, O.Cist., Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
10. Gualtiero Bassetti, Archbishop of Perugia-Città della Pieve (Italy)
11. Mario Aurelio Poli, Archbishop of Buenos Aires (Argentina)
12. Andrew Yeom Soo jung, Archbishop of Seoul (Korea)
13. Ricardo Ezzati Andrello, S.D.B., Archbishop of Santiago del Cile (Chile)
14. Philippe Nakellentuba Ouédraogo, Archbishop of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso)
15. Orlando B. Quevedo, O.M.I., Archbishop of Cotabato (Philippines)
16. Chibly Langlois, Bishop of Les Cayes (Haïti)

The three emeritus archbishops as cardinals are:
1. Loris Francesco Capovilla, Titular Archbishop of Mesembria (Italy)
2. Fernando Sebastián Aguilar, C.M.F., Archbishop emeritus of Pamplona (Spain)
3. Kelvin Edward Felix, Archbishop emeritus of Castries (Saint Lucia)